suggestionfandomcom-20200215-history
User blog:Willbachbakal/Custom Patch Notes/Champions/Marksmen
Marksmen are a class that have come into their own as the game matured, and are now a staple, if not the staple, in every team. While the permanence of marksmen is likely something that needs to addressed (who could replace an AD Carry?), a larger and bigger issue is that of many marksmen essentially being treated as vessels for big items. The marksman changes in Preseason 6 addressed this full-on and gave many the niche and flavor they deserved, along with far more interesting itemization, but there are still several left that present classic marksman issues, or simply problems innate to their kits that prevent them from realizing their fantasies successfully. This section was initially made prior to patch 5.22, and many of the changes that happened then addressed the problems outlined here, but marksmen as a class still have a lot of room for improvement. The overarching goals for the marksman changes below are the following: Unique Gameplay Niches= Currently, there are a lot of marksmen out there that link to a very strong theme: is the game's sniper, is the ice ranger, is the close-quarters shotgun brawler, and so on. However, some of these themes aren't executed nearly as well as they could be: for example, , who's meant to be forever bound to her sworn allies, tends to act on her own. Additionally, many marksmen end up providing very similar strengths to their team (e.g. pushing and objective taking power, tank-busting DPS), which makes deciding between them often more a matter of success rates and scalings than proper strategy. While ultimately all marksmen should likely be good at laying down consistent damage from a distance, that leaves a ton of room for each ADC to express their own playstyle in a manner that is completely distinct from any other's. |-| Unique Stat Expression= A big issue with many marksmen is that they're frequently given on-demand free power, often in the form of raw stats, and that their kits as a result lack true moments of success or unique strength. In the worst case, some ADC kits are deficient to the point of almost being empty, simply because they're expected to have most of their power focused on items. The biggest offender here is , whose kit feels tremendously weak simply because he blows up in the late game with a full build and his various stat bonuses that pad out several of his abilities, and even champions like have a lot of power placed on on-demand stats when they could express it in far more interesting ways, which creates an issue of poorly visible power as well. In the end, each item has to make sense on a marksman beyond just offering necessary AD carry stats, and stats on marksmen need to feel truly interesting and rewarding, even if it comes at a cost to on-demand steroids and general power. |-| Proper Kit Synergy= A running issue with many marksmen kits is that their abilities tend to lack synergy, simply offering a bit of damage, crowd control, utility or mobility without interacting with each other in interesting ways. Marksmen with major hybrid scalings, such as or , tend to be the clearest examples of this, with effects that may share a theme, but don't really mesh too well with each other (this also leads to AP or AD builds on those champions often feeling incomplete either way, as there are "dead" effects on their kits that don't really do much at all). While not every champion needs to have as much synergy as, say, a mage combo, every kit needs to be internally consistent, and the best kits have abilities that build upon each other to lead to unique expressions of power and skill. This is an issue intrinsically tied to marksmen often not making interesting use of their stats, as well as them not expressing their niche in a truly unique way, so creating more kit synergy would allow for more interesting use of stats and set a clearer niche for each ADC. Caitlyn= ;Niche: The Sniper * Note: the following rework, along with most of this section, was made some time before the marksman pass in Preseason 6, though the changelist has been updated to reflect Cait's current state. Prior to her changes, Caitlyn was mediocre at lane bullying, which was her greatest strength, and her long-range attacker fantasy was left mostly unrealized. Fast-forward to now, and she manages to fulfill her intended strengths in a manner that is interesting for everyone involved, and is more of a sniper than she ever was. She isn't, however, a perfect sniper, in that she still requires multiple hits to kill her enemies and doesn't make her player depend all that much on aiming perfectly (her Q and E changes encouraged that more, though). These are minor complaints around a kit that is now successful and well-designed, though, meaning the following suggestions are more an alternate take on the sniper marksman fantasy she embodies than an attempt to "fix" her. Perhaps it might not even be desirable to have a "proper" sniper in League, i.e. a champion that one-shots enemies from the other side of the map, though the following kit intends to do that while also imposing heavy tradeoffs, such as terrible waveclearing and target switching, as well as a near-inability to fight in standard autoattacking combat, which would make her the opposite of a standard marksman in many ways. * Stats: ** Attack range reduced to 425 from 650. ** Base attack damage increased to 65 from . ** Attack damage growth increased to 5 from . ** Base attack speed increased to from . *** Compensatory level 1 bonus attack speed removed. ** Attack speed growth reduced to 1% from 4%. ** Movement speed increased to 340 from 325. ** Basic attack projectile speed increased to 4000. * : ** Reworked: hovering the cursor over a large unit within 1250 units now causes Caitlyn to focus them. If she does not break focus with her target for seconds, sped up by per |1 / }} seconds, she marks them for the next 5 seconds, them for the duration and causing her next basic attack to consume the mark, critically strike and deal 150% damage. ** Enemies can see if they are being focused or marked, and when marked a laser links them to Caitlyn, visible through any form of . ** Only one target can be marked at a time. * ** Mana cost removed. ** Cooldown reduced to 1 second from . ** Reworked into a toggle. *** When toggled on, Caitlyn becomes unable to move, but gains attack range. *** Additionally, issuing an attack command fires a bullet in the target direction which stops at the first enemy champion hit, counting as a basic attack. *** While perched, a circle appears around Caitlyn, visible to her only, indicating her maximum attack range. * : ** Cooldown changed to from . ** Cast range increased to 1000 from 800. ** Maximum traps reduced to 3 at all ranks from . ** Arm time reduced to 1 from . ** Vision on affected targets reduced to for 3 seconds from for 9 seconds. * : ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Cast range reduced to 425 from 950. ** Dash distance increased to 425 from 400. ** Damage removed. ** duration increased to 2 at all ranks from . ** strength changed to from 50% at all ranks. ** Instantly toggles off before dashing. * : ** New bonus damage increased by 50% per rank, up to total damage. ** Active can only be used while is toggled on. ** Cooldown increased to from . ** Active reworked: allows Caitlyn to mark any visible enemy on the map with , also causing her next basic attack to gain global range and deal true damage to targets marked by , lasting until is toggled off or Caitlyn fires a basic attack. |-| Ezreal= ;Niche: The Caster Carry * Though well-loved by the community as one of the most aim-based marksmen around, Ezreal's struggled as the game's landscape shifted to better favor tanks and marksmen with more consistent scalings. Though his AP playstyle enjoyed a bout of popularity due to his interaction with on-release , as a marksman he suffers from a lack of overall damage compared to most other ADCs, and as an AP assassin he just doesn't have that much to do after blowing his combo. Ez is mostly well-designed, but suffers a bit from flaws common to older AD/AP hybrid champions, as his passive isn't good at all on AP Ezreal (it's not that good on AD Ezreal either), and his W feels terrible on AD Ezreal (it's also not too spectacular even on his AP build). The goal of these changes is to concentrate Ezreal's power and allow both his playstyles to feel really good, while also putting a bit more emphasis on comboing his spells together (he is a caster marksman, after all) and occasionally putting himself close to his targets in-between powerful bursts of long-ranged damage. * reworked: against enemy champions energize them for seconds, causing each of Ezreal's basic attacks and abilities against them to reduce his abilities' cooldowns by 1 second. * no longer reduces Ezreal's cooldowns on its own. * : ** Range increased to 1250 from 1000. ** Reworked: Ezreal fires a small pulse of energy that slowly travels in a line, passing through all enemies it runs through. If Ezreal hits the pulse with a basic attack or ability, it detonates, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and critically striking them. * : ** ratio removed. ** Fires a second shot to detonate if it's within range. |-| Kalista= ;Niche: The Duo Marksman * Though only a relatively recent addition to the marksman roster, Kalista's already made herself infamous for the friction induced by her kit: her unique interactions with a specific ally are often needlessly frustrating and forceful, her abilities give her easy access to power most other champions have to work harder to earn in lesser amounts, in spite of said power being more appropriate for them than for her (e.g. Smiting jungle monsters), and her unique movement paradigm is implemented in such a way that she takes a lot of options away from her opponents in combat, especially melee champions with limited mobility and crowd control. On top of this, her identity's all over the place: despite having her character, lore and core set of mechanics firmly entrenched in heavy dependence upon an ally, Kalista's ended up becoming one of the most independent marksmen in the game, a strength reinforced by Riot themselves in recent changes. With a kit picked more for its competitive abuse potential than for its capacity for fun gameplay on all sides, and weaknesses that are either insignificant (e.g. her reliance on allies) or simply tacked on (e.g. basic attacks that scale less with AD), Kalista needs to be refitted into her intended thematic niche. The goal of these changes is to bring her ally synergy to the forefront in a manner that makes playing her, with her and against her truly fun, and to make her overall strengths and weaknesses a lot more pronounced and coherent. Additionally, the intent here is also to turn that synergy into windows of additional gameplay for both her and her Oathsworn, rather than just raw power, and thereby also allow her to have different, yet equally valuable, benefits from binding to different allies, beyond just her support. * Stats: ** Is now a manaless champion. ** Base attack speed increased to from . ** Attack speed growth increased to 4% from . * ** Renamed to Oathsworn. *** Reworked: Upon right-clicking an allied champion, regardless of distance on the map, Kalista marks them for her death pact and causes the Oathsworn symbol to appear above them. If the ally accepts by clicking on the symbol within the next 5 seconds, they instantly become Oathsworn to Kalista for the rest of the game and prevent Kalista from selecting another Oathsworn. Otherwise, Kalista can try again on any allied champion. *** Animations removed. *** on self and ally removed. *** Quotes upon bonding are no longer global. *** removed. ** Whenever Kalista's Oathsworn damages a large unit while near her or her , they exact Vengeance against them, empowering Kalista's abilities against the target until the latter against the duo. This effect can only occur once every seconds per champion, and only one Vendetta can be active at any time. * ** Reworked: Kalista dashes 525 units in the target direction, priming her next basic attack within 2 seconds to be a linear colliding skillshot firing on click, gaining 600 bonus range and dealing of target's maximum health}} bonus magic damage, capped at 200 against non-champions. *** Kalista retains the ability to use basic attacks while dashing, which completes in the space of an attack delay. ** While Vengeance is in effect, Pierce's cooldown is refreshed every time it hits the marked target, though it can only be recast once Kalista completes her dash. * ** Passives removed. ** Active cooldown reduced to a static 5 seconds from 30. ** Recharge time reduced to from a static . ** Sentinel range changed to from 5000 at all ranks. ** Sentinels last seconds instead of a limited number of laps. ** Sentinels' movement speed now scales with Kalista's movement speed. ** Sentinel time reduced to 2 from 4. ** While Vengeance is in effect, Sentinels that the marked target them by . * ** Cooldown reduced to 8 at all ranks from . ** Spears last as long as Kalista remains in combat with her target. ** Base damage per spear changed to from . ** Total damage capped at Smite's damage at the same level against non-champions. ** The first Rend stack no longer deals additional damage. ** removed. ** Cooldown refresh now only applies upon killing a large unit with Rend, instead of all units. ** While Vengeance is in effect, Kalista's Oathsworn applies Rend to the marked target with their own attacks. * ** Cooldown increased to from . ** Active now reveals the mark above Kalista's Oathsworn and prompts them to click it to retract them into her, instead of automatically sucking them in. *** The mark requires the Oathsworn to be able to answer her call, and can therefore not be activated by them while they are rendered unable to use abilities. ** Call range is now global. *** Activation quotes, however, no longer are. ** duration reduced to from . Category:Blog posts